Splashed all over the Web
Hudson diver speaks
The Long Island woman who grossed out the Web by posting a TikTok video of herself jumping into the Hudson River admits she took the dive for the attention — but she’d never do it again.
“When it started getting likes, I was like, ‘OK, this was what I wanted,’ ” Donna Paysepar, 20, told NJ.com on Monday.
“I just have the YOLO [You Only Live Once] mentality.’’
The Nassau County food blogger’s Aug. 12 romp in the infamously polluted waterway, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, has racked up 2.7 million views and more than 244,000 likes.
But, she says, the dip was her first and last.
Paysepar — a liberal-arts student and a lifeguard at a day camp — said it was a spur-of-the-moment decision while she was on a friend’s boat that had set out from Port Washington, LI
“I did it for the video and for the memory,’’ she said. “And ’cause it was also hot.”
Paysepar added that she didn’t swallow any river water — although she claimed in her TikTok video that the “gross” water “tasted really bad. I got some of it in my mouth.”
In addition to the views and likes, her video garnered a slew of comments from people chastising her for risking her health.
“[S]till thinking about that girl who jumped in the hudson river in nyc bc that girl bouta test positive on all types of radiation and bacteria,’’ one concerned person tweeted.
Another wrote, “If I hear someone jumped into the Hudson River I assume it’s a suicide attempt.”
Paysepar said of the backlash, “I thought it was funny, but some comments are a little mean.
“Some people are sending death threats saying, ‘I hope she dies from that water’ . . . ‘She’s not going to be able to have kids.’ ”